The biggest battle I have with depression is a war of words. Words that go round and around in my head, as though someone has pressed a repeat button and then glued it down. Words that bring me down, that belittle me and rob me of joy. Words that deny me the freedom to be the wonderful human being that God created me to be.
I have tried so many times to replace those negative words with positive ones. I read all the right motivational books, pray, read my Bible, go for counseling and for a short while I feel great. I plant a bouquet of words in my mind, beautiful and inspiring that I can reflect on for a while. But like all bouquets they soon wither and die and the weeds of negativity sprout up and take their place in my mind. I have finally realized that to get rid of these words I have to do something more positive than just ‘plant word bouquets’.
So what do I do? How do I go about getting rid of these negative words that bring me down? I am going to have to plant ‘seedlings’! You see, ‘seedlings’ are simple, tiny, beginnings of enormous truths and they have roots. It is these roots that make them so powerful in comparison to the ‘cut flowers’ that have nothing but their beauty which withers and dies after a very short time. I am, of course, going to have to nurture the ‘seedlings’ and keep on weeding out the negative words – every time they pop up in my head I am going to have to yank them out and replace them with the ‘seedling’ words. My first ‘seedling words’ are “I am God’s Masterpiece” – Ephesians 2:10 “We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.”
How about you? Are you ready to accept that you too are God’s masterpiece? That He has created you uniquely and specifically to be just who you are to fulfill His plans and purposes for your life? That His love for you is all consuming and that He does not think any of the negative things about you that you think about yours
